


Clawing at My Throat

by RidingMalum



Category: Stargirl (TV 2020)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Rick is so in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:22:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29826291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RidingMalum/pseuds/RidingMalum
Summary: “Things you said too quietly.”
Relationships: Beth Chapel/Rick Tyler
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Clawing at My Throat

Beth’s head is down, focusing on her calculus homework, so she doesn’t see the way that Rick is looking at her.

Rick is focused in on her like she is the most amazing thing the world has ever created. Like travelers might look at the seven wonders of the world, or how an astronomer might look at a shooting star. He’s looking at her like he’s never seen her before, and a part of him wishes that he could always look at her for the first time over and over again so he can feel this way all the time. 

Of course, Rick knows that it isn’t true. He’s seen Beth probably hundreds of times, and in a bunch of situations. He’s reminded that this is the same girl he’s been going to school with since kindergarten. He has to remind himself that Beth is the same girl he’s sat at an almost empty table with for years, she’s also the girl he secretly fought crime with and baked cookies with on Friday. Well, she baked the cookies and he ate the dough, but it’s the same thing in his mind.

He has to remind himself that this is the same Beth that volunteers at the Red Cross every Christmas. The same Beth who helps at the soup kitchen down town and tutors middle schoolers and babysits little kids. The same Beth that bites on the end of her pencil when she’s doing her calculus homework, just like she is right now. 

It had taken Rick by surprise at first, but he  knows Beth. He knows the girl that he’s in love with. Which still scares him sometimes that he has fallen in love. But Beth makes it easy because she never ceases to amaze him.

_ I could tell her right now,  _ he thinks,  _ I could tell her that I love her right now. I could tell her how she amazes me, how she absolutely floors me with how glorious she is. I could just tell her instead of having this feeling clawing at my chest, at my throat, trying to force its way out.  _

It has taken a while of having friends who care about him so much for him to realize that what he feels, he feels, and it isn’t something that he can control, and if he says it, whatever at least it’s out there and he won’t feel like he’s lying Beth. 

“I love you,” he says. Beth looks up from the paper filled with equations. She takes the pencil out of her mouth, and blinks at Rick, as if he’s just woken her up whilst she was in the middle of dreaming.

“Pardon?” Beth questions, and then laughs tiredly. “My mind was somewhere else.”

Rick isn’t afraid. He isn’t a coward by any means, but Beth with her big brown eyes and beautiful smile have somehow gotten underneath his armor. That makes him nervous, he can’t remember the last time someone has made him feel so exposed. It makes him a nervous that he’ll feel the sting of rejection by Beth, even though they’ve been dating for a few months now it doesn’t mean that she feels how he does. Rick Tyler is not afraid of many things, but when it comes to this, he is not brave. 

He shakes his head and shifts in his seat, giving her a slight smile. “Nothing, but maybe you should put the parentheses there.” 

She gives him a smile and a quiet thanks as she erases something on her paper, and Rick feels his chest ache.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you like it. If you do feel free to let me know. I’m always open to requests.
> 
> My tumblr is @ svnnypope


End file.
